"Adopt a kilometre": the land care behind L'Eroica

Behind the white gravel roads of the Chianti and the vintage bicycles there is daily work that never shows up in the photos: caring for the landscape. For the 29th edition, L'Eroica is renewing "Adotta un chilometro" (Adopt a kilometre), in partnership with the Benefit Company Terrecablate.

Since 1997 L'Eroica has looked after and promoted the province of Siena. Each year 17 municipalities in Siena welcome thousands of cyclists from all over the world along the two permanent routes of Terra Eroica: L'Eroica in Gaiole in Chianti and Eroica Montalcino. Together they make 290 kilometres through hills, vineyards, medieval villages and gravel tracks.

The initiative works like this: with the support of local associations in the 17 municipalities, cyclists, volunteers and residents symbolically take charge of the stretches of road that cross their own area, and look after cleaning, removing litter and maintaining the verges before, during and after the race passes.

Terrecablate Reti e Servizi, a Tuscan internet and telephone operator, supports the project as a Benefit Company rooted in the Sienese community.

It seems to me a concrete way to remember that vintage cycling is not just nostalgia: if we want to keep pedalling on these roads twenty years from now, someone has to take care of them today.

Source: L'Eroica